Those who believe Jurgen Klopp would have his famed enthusiasm dimmed by Liverpool’s difficult last season would appear mistaken. Very, very mistaken indeed.
There has been little sign of the Reds boss moping around the training camp during the team’s stay near the quiet town of Donaueschingen in southern Germany, and was happily signing autographs and posing for pictures after Wednesday’s 4-2 opening friendly win at Karlsruhe SC.
That the match came mere hours after Jordan Henderson followed Fabinho in edging nearer a move to Saudi Arabia – and thus further seriously disrupt preparations for the new season – weren’t enough to undermine Klopp’s overall positive vibe.
The Liverpool manager, then, evidently has the bit between his teeth to atone for an at times calamitous previous campaign.
“I can’t believe I’ve been doing this job for ages and so far my excitement hasn’t stopped,” says Klopp. “I’m really happy being here. I enjoyed the holiday but when I went on the plane to go back to Liverpool, I thought ‘it starts again’. It was really good. It’s about the game – if you love the game, you want to watch it, you want to talk about.
“And yes, I want to put things right. That gives me the extra edge as well. The fever, the power, the excitement is bigger when last season was not great. That’s still what we have and I will make sure we keep that for the full season. I will remind them (the players) that we agreed on doing more and more and more and more than anybody and I’m pretty sure we will have a good chance of playing a pretty good season.”
While Klopp wants Liverpool to once again embrace becoming one of the most difficult teams to play against – they lost 14 games in all competitions last term compared to just four the previous season – he is urging improvement across the board. Standards are being set high.
“I want us to be a lot,” he says. “I would really love to be that team where everybody goes ‘oh God, Liverpool’. But I want us to be a possession team, a high-press team, specialists in those things. Best in the world for counter-press, best in deep defending, best in midfield press, best in set-pieces offensively and defensively. We are trying to raise the bar again and again and again.
“There has been a lot of change over the years. Of course, we have lost experienced players (this summer) but it opens the door for others. That’s how it is. Everybody wants a change and a massive development or overhaul or how you want to call it, but I’m 100% sure we have the boys to run through the open door. If you can create some stability with the quality we have then we have a good chance to win football games.”
Klopp adds: “Everything starts with an idea. An idea of how we want to play, an idea of how we want to respond, an idea of how we want to strike back and an idea of how we are going to do better. We pretty much have done the headline for this pre-season, we told the boys we have to do better, and better starts always with more. We do more. It’s what we do here.
“The intensity in training, you could see immediately from the first day the boys mean business. They were really looking forward to this. As short as the holiday was for some – and long enough for some others – when they arrived you could see the fire in their eyes. I loved it a lot. With all the sessions we’e had, I couldn’t extinguish it with all the things we did. It’s still there, so that’s good.”
Liverpool began their recovery with an 11-game unbeaten run at the end of last season which, while not quite enough to secure Champions League qualification, provided momentum for the summer and showcased a new formation which was again used during the opening friendly.